


Kin, and Less Than Kind

by Seascribe



Category: due South
Genre: Camping, Episode Related, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ray, you haven't seen anything <i>unusual</i> lately, have you?"</p><p>"In what sense?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kin, and Less Than Kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Muccamukk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/gifts).



> For Muccamukk's prompt asking for a story in which RayV and Fraser end up talking to each other’s fathers. She also beta'd and wrangled my inner five-year-old, for which I am immensely grateful. Pumpkinonwheels did handholding.
> 
> Set after North. The title is (of course) from Hamlet.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into spending the rest of my vacation up here," Ray grumbles, shifting around to get comfortable on the barn floor. "I shoulda high-tailed it back to civilisation as soon as we got off that raft."

Fraser rustles around in his sleeping bag. "We can always head back into town, of course, although I do recall it being your idea to continue with our original plans. I'm afraid it will be impossible to complete the entire project in the shortened time frame anyway."

"So it takes us a couple of trips," Ray says. "You can't be trusted to rebuild it on your own, Fraser. I give you an inch, and you'll be sneaking plans for an outhouse into the blueprints." 

"Well, it would be much simpler," Fraser says.

"No way in hell," Ray retorts. "Pipe down and go to sleep, Benny."

*

Ray is really starting to get the hang of this whole outdoorsy thing. He drives a couple more nails in and gives the framework a shake, pleased when it doesn't budge. 

"Not bad, for an American," a gruff voice says behind him. 

Ray yelps and drops the hammer on his foot. "Sonofabitch!" 

"Language could still use some work though." The voice belongs to an older guy, wearing a furry hat with earflaps and a parka that looks like it took a whole school of baby seals to make.

"Who the hell're you?" Ray demands, peering at him through watering eyes. He looks kinda familiar. "Fraser know you're out here?" 

"Oh, I daresay so," the guy says. He holds out a hand. "Bob Fraser." 

Ray snorts. "Right. Pull the other one." 

"The other what?" the old guy says, giving him a look like he's lost his marbles. 

"Never mind," Ray says, rolling his eyes. Canadians. "Look, can I help you with something?" 

"No, no," the guy says. "You carry on, Yank. I was just admiring your handiwork. You'll want to use a sharper angle with that next board, though, to keep the wood from splitting." Ray glances down at the board he's holding, and when he looks back up, the old guy is gone. Ray shivers and picks up his hammer.

*

"Hey Benny, you got any long-lost relations up here that might be dropping by for a visit?" 

"Not that I know of, Ray," Benton says. "Why?" 

"No reason," Ray says, with an elaborately casual shrug. "Tell you what, I'll clean up here if you'll get a fire started for dinner." 

Benton glances around suspiciously as he heads into the trees to gather firewood. There's been no hint of his father since the riverbank, and he would very much like for it to stay that way. 

"You're wasting your time," a voice with the same characteristic denti-alveolar consonants as Ray's says behind him. Fraser spins around, shocked at having been caught unawares. The man behind him chuckles, rather meanly Benton thinks. "That knock on the head making you lose your edge, huh?" 

"I beg your pardon?" 

"Don't give me that," the man says, slouching against the white ash. "This place is gonna last, what, six months, a year, before someone burns it down again? You probably won't even get it finished before then." 

"I really do think you're overestimating the problem of intentional arson in the area," Benton says. 

"Maybe, but you still got my son wasting his time up here, when he oughtta be at home taking care of his family."

The sheer hypocrisy of this statement thankfully distracts Benton from any concerns he might have about the further deterioration of his sanity. 

"Perhaps you're right," Benton agrees. "After all, I'm given to understand you're something of an expert on the subject. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must get the fire started before we lose the light." He pointedly refrains from looking to see if he's alone on his way back to the clearing.

*

"Ray, you haven't seen anything _unusual_ lately, have you?" Fraser asks, as they're finishing up their reconstituted tuna and noodles. 

"In what sense?" Ray says nervously. 

"Nevermind," Fraser says. "You know, when I was growing up in Tuktoyaktuk, old Trapper McFinley used to claim he'd seen a two-headed caribou, but as it turned out--" 

"I definitely haven't seen any two-headed caribou, Benny," Ray interrupts. He gathers up their camping plates and makes a break for the creek to do the washing up, before Fraser can really get going. 

"Poor old Joe," the same old guy as before says, sitting down on the log beside Ray. Ray only jumps a little this time. "He was never really the same after the accident." After more than a year of working with Fraser, Ray knows better than to say anything to that. 

Something clunks into place. "Oh my god. You gotta be kidding me." Ray knows why he looks familiar now. He recognises him from the photos in the case file, last spring. "You're Fraser's dad." 

Bob Fraser shakes his head. "Didn't I already introduce myself?" 

"You're _dead!_ " Ray yells at him. 

Bob nods slowly. "Of course I am, Yank. You helped Benton bring my killers to justice, don't you remember? I never did get a chance to thank you for that, by the way. Good work on your part, very good. Much obliged." 

"Oh sure, no problem," Ray says. He puts his head down in his hands. "Jesus, it's not bad enough I got my own old man hanging around haunting me, I gotta deal with Benny's too?" He looks up. "Hey, you ever talk to Benny?" 

"Quite often," Bob says. "Although he seems to consider my visits something of an inconvenience." He shakes his head mournfully. 

"Gee, I wonder why," Ray mutters. 

"There's no call to be rude," Bob says. "You know, you really should get Benton to take you camping properly. It's a damn shame for a grown man to have never been camping." 

"I'm sleeping on the ground and living off of MREs," Ray retorts. "And before that, it was grubs. How much more camping do I gotta do before it counts, huh?" 

"Oh, none of that is really camping, Yank. Why, you're bedding down under a roof and you haven't even learned how to light a fire properly yet." 

"Yeah, I know all about your ideas there," Ray says, a little surprised at how angry he is all of the sudden. "Abandoning a six-year-old kid out in the middle of the woods at night? Sure, that's real solid parenting." 

"It was a valuable learning experience," Bob says mulishly, and Ray laughs in his face.

"You just keep telling yourself that," Ray says, and stomps off into the woods to get a little goddamn peace and quiet.

*

"We certainly will not be getting satellite television," Benton says. Dief whines. "No, I don't want to hear it. You managed to entertain yourself perfectly well for years without access to subtitled prime time television." 

"Now you're talking to the dog?" The caustic voice comes out of nowhere, and when Benton glances over the fire, he sees Ray's father leaning against the door of the old barn a few metres away. "You losing your mind or what?" 

"He identifies as a wolf, actually," Benton says. Lord, he'll never again take his own father's apparitions for granted. "And forgive me, but I'm not entirely sure that you're in a position to question my sanity. Surely conversing with a ghost is a much more eccentric proposition." 

Ray's father snorts. "You think you're better than me with your _presuntuoso_ vocabulary, huh?" 

"On the contrary," Benton says. "I would consider a man's vocabulary among the least important of his attributes, far below such considerations as his work ethic, his patience, and his sense of duty to those who relied on him." He gives Ray's father his best and blandest smile. 

"You got no right to judge me and my family," Ray's father says. "Raymondo, he's telling you all kinds of things you got no right to know, stuff he should keep his mouth shut about." 

"I imagine it must take a very great deal of courage to share such personal formative experiences," Benton says. His voice is perfectly level. "But then, I have always admired Ray's courage and basic existential honesty."

"You don't have a clue what you're talking about," Ray's father says. "You're a stranger, a freak. None of this is any of your business." 

"Then by all means, please don't let me take up your time with it unnecessarily," Benton says. "I have to tell you, though, I'm grateful for the additional insight you've given me into Ray's character. Now, if that's all, I need to visit the latrine." 

*

The thing about ghosts, Ray thinks sourly, is that they're impossible to outrun, even when they're wearing snowshoes in the middle of July. 

"Look, I am not listening to you!" he says to Fraser's dad. "I don't care about the virtues of being able to make a fire out of rocks, okay?" 

"You never know when it might come in handy," Bob Fraser says. "Can't always count on Benton being there to save your bacon, after all." 

"Sure I can," Ray retorts. "And anyway, after we get your damn cabin rebuilt, I'm going back to Chicago and the closest I'm gonna get to nature is a walk in Grant Park." 

"You say that now, but just you wait," Bob Fraser says. "The wilderness gets under your skin, son. You'll find yourself itching to return to the land." 

"Yeah, when pigs fly," Ray says. "Now will you go away?" 

Bob Fraser sighs. "In my day, you'd never hear a man speak so disrespectfully to his elders. Especially when they were dead! How the times change." He licks a finger and holds it up, sniffing at the wind. "Rain on the way, Yank. I'd head back to camp, if I were you." And with that, he fades out of sight. 

"Finally," Ray mutters. Benny's old man is better company than Pop, maybe, but he's twice as long-winded and annoying as Benny, and that is really saying something. Ray shakes his head, and heads back the way he'd come. 

Except the stream has apparently moved, because he's definitely walked further than he did coming out. Ray squints belligerently at the trees, which all look pretty much the same. There's a new compass in his pocket, because Fraser had insisted on it, but hell if Ray has any idea how to use the damn thing. He pulls it out anyway, watching the needle waver its way to north. Nope, unless he's gonna walk a couple thousand miles south to the border, the compass isn't gonna do him any good. 

"You're going to have to hurry if you want to beat that rain," says Fraser's dad from behind him, and Ray groans. "No good dawdling." 

"I'm _not_ ," Ray says. "I'm taking the scenic route." 

"Ah," says Bob Fraser, and it's exactly the same "ah" that Benny uses, the one that means, "You are full of crap, but I am much too polite to point it out." It makes Ray want to punch something. "Well, you just take your time, Yank. A little thunderstorm never hurt anybody. Except for old Angus Barrow, struck by lightning on the roof of the church in Destruction Bay. Lit him up like a Christmas tree. Doctor said he would've been fine, though, if he hadn't cracked his skull with the landing." 

"That's great," Ray says. He crams the compass back in his pocket and starts walking again, in a different direction this time. People who get lost in the woods panic, he reminds himself. But Ray's not gonna panic. He's done this before, hasn't he, carrying Benny and getting shot at, and he came through that just fine. This is small potatoes. 

"I think you've gotten a bit turned around," Bob Fraser says. 

"Oh yeah?" Ray snaps. "How about you point me in the right direction then?" 

Bob shakes his head. "Oh, you don't need my help, son," he says. "You'll figure it out. Or you'll starve to death, that's always a possibility, but either way, you'll never get lost in the woods again." 

*

"I'm sure he'll come back when he's ready, Dief," Benton says. "No, I'm perfectly confident in his ability to manage in the woods by himself. Surely you can't have failed to notice that Ray was in no small part responsible for our continued survival." Dief makes a haughty noise, and Benton frowns. "Well, I certainly hope you'll remember that when we get back to Chicago. I for one have no qualms in admitting that I was in sore need of assistance." 

"Maybe he finally wised up and left your ass, like he should've done in the first place," Ray's father says, and Benton sighs. 

"If Ray were inclined to leave, he would be unlikely to attempt the journey without supplies," Benton points out. "Unless he plans to hike three days with no water or food, he's probably out for an evening constitutional and will be back shortly." 

It's an entirely plausible scenario. Just because Ray has so far exhibited no interest in further exploration the area, claiming to have seem more than enough of it already, there's absolutely no reason he can't have changed his mind.

Ray's father rolls his eyes. "You're fooling yourself. He got tired of wasting his time, and he left." He raises an eyebrow at Benton. "Took him long enough." 

"He didn't leave," Benton snaps. "I know Ray, and if he were going to leave, he would tell me." 

"You think you know him better than his father does?" Ray's father says. "I tell you, either he left or he's lost in the woods. Hey, you like that better?" 

Benton grits his teeth. "He has a compass. If he did get turned around, he'll find his way back. Ray is quite capable." 

Benton is surprised when Ray's father laughs, a deep, genuine belly laugh that brings tears to his eyes, as though Benton has just told a riotously funny joke. 

" _Amico_ , I don't know what my boy did that you've got so much faith in him, but listen to me, you're gonna be disappointed." Ray's father shakes his head, looking mournful. "Even when he was just a kid running around the neighbourhood, he couldn't get anything right, couldn't get in with the right crowd. He's a loser." 

It's very fortunate that the man is incorporeal, because right now Benton would like nothing more than to punch him. 

"If that's what you think, then it appears that I do indeed know him better than you do," Benton says, standing up. "I'm really not interested in continuing this conversation." 

*

"Would it kill you to shut up for thirty seconds?" Ray demands. 

Bob Fraser looks offended. "That's a little insensitive, don't you think?"

"You'll get over it," Ray says. "Unless you're gonna say something useful, I don't wanna hear it."

"Oh, there are plenty of useful things in the old stories, Yank," Bob says. "I'm sure Benton has told you some of them. He's got his grandmother's knack for storytelling. Even when he was just a boy, he would tell all kinds of stories, although some of them were quite absurd. Why, when he was eight, there was one about trying to lead a caribou to water--"

"Shut up!" Ray says. Bob keeps right on talking, but Ray's tuned him out, because Benny's told him that story--Jesus, he's been telling the same boring stories for thirty years, there is something seriously wrong with him--and Ray wasn't really paying attention, but he remembers Benny talking about how to find water, you had to go downhill. 

No guarantee Ray'll find the right stream, where he'd left the cooking stuff, but he figures that either way, water is good, and it sure beats sitting here doing nothing while a dead Mountie talks his ear off. 

He turns and starts walking down the slope.

"Good job, Yank," Bob says proudly. "Knew you had it in you." 

*

A couple of raindrops fall into the fire, hissing and spitting, and Benton looks worriedly up at the clouds rolling in. 

"Looks pretty nasty," Ray's father says. "A smart guy would already be back by now." 

"I can't imagine you have much experience with the weather patterns of the Territories," Benton snaps. "So your opinion of the situation is worth remarkably little." 

Ray's father's eyes narrow, but before he can say anything, there's a crackle from the underbrush and Ray says, "Hey, who're you talking to, Benny?" Dief bounds to greet him, wagging his tail ecstatically.

"Ray!" Despite his staunch defense of Ray's competence, Benton feels a rush of relief at the sight of him. "I was just telling Dief some interesting facts about the local flora." 

Ray rolls his eyes. 

"You were gone for quite a while," Benton says, unable to help himself. 

"Just spending some one-on-one time with Mother Nature," Ray says with a shrug. "Got a little turned around for a while, but I got it sorted out. I'm pretty good at this wilderness survival thing by now, Benny." 

"I don't doubt it, Ray," Benton says.

He climbs to his feet to take the clean cookware from Ray and, impulsively, pulls him into a hug. Surprised, Ray at first stiffens instinctively, but then goes loose and relaxed, reaching around to pat Benton's back a couple of times. 

"Everything okay?" 

"Sure," Benton says, letting go and busying himself with tidying away the cookware. "You know, Ray, I was thinking. Perhaps tomorrow we should take a bit of a break from working on the cabin, do some fishing or something. After all, this is your vacation." 

"Hey, that sounds great," Ray says, grinning at him. 

Benton smiles back, and when he looks back across the fire, Ray's father is nowhere to be seen.


End file.
